Master of my fate
by Dare she says it
Summary: Disowned by the Rakshanna for his treachery, and resigned to do the bidding of one Sahirah Foster, Kartik once again finds himself at the grounds of Spence, longing for a girl he cannot have, and whose life he's taken a thousand times in his dreams. TSFT.
1. Chapter 1

Like many of the wonderful people here, I felt that TSTF was just so brilliantly executed, and written by the lovely Libba Bray, I could hardly sit still, away from the computer, not itching to add more to the experience that left us all so.. "WOW."

So I've decided to do for TSFT, what I did for Rebel Angels, which is to say, narrate the entire book from the point of view of a certain handsome, witty, and heart-stopping Indian. This first chapter will be a test chapter. If you like what you see, I will continue posting more chapters (because, really, one chapter takes a lot of time to write, and if I'm churning out utter rubbish, what's the point, right?)

So please let me know: the good, the bad, the ugly.

Anything that is remotely recognizable from the books, I do not own. They are property of Miss Libba Bray. ...And regarding that teensy swear word, I know they couldn't possibly have used it in the Victorian era, but hey, I did for all us. :)

* * *

I am beginning to lose count of the days.

My fingers, stained thick with the blood from an earlier wound, scrabble desperately at the faint, uneven cuts I've managed to gouge on the face of a random wall, one for after every horrid visit with Fowlson, with the point of a small, neighboring stone.

I run the tip of my tongue gently over the swell of my bottom lip. I can still taste the sweet stain of her kiss there like the stray, abandoned remnants of powdered fruit. This is absurd, of course. I've not seen, nor kissed the stubborn Gemma Doyle in nearly two months.

I find it regretful now, the distance I kept myself... refusing the magnificent pull of those startlingly green eyes that told you, whispered to you in dreams, secrets you wanted terribly to know... the strange, peculiar brilliance of her smile like the sunrise expelling the untoward darkness of night, that intoxicating, bubbling warmth of her laugh.

I am aware of how smitten I sound, and it is insufferable, disgusting. I am not foolish, or deluded enough—even with the considerable absence of sleep, and with only paltry helpings of bread and water to sustain me every night—to believe that I shall last very long in this foul, miserable hole. But I pray for it. It is enough to keep me breathing; barely alive, but still... hopeful, longing, even when Fowlson has kicked at my stomach so many times I have become cold, and numb with the immense agony of it.

It. I pray for it...

It is Gemma's tiny frown... that slightest, dissatisfied curl of her mouth whenever she is mulling something over, turning it over in her mind. It stretches slowly to form an infuriated wince. It is a wince she has pulled clumsily from the depths of her hammering heart; a wince smoothly employed to mask the true breadth of her excitement, her joy as she takes in the bewildering sight of me, this time, unlike the others, assured for certain that I am no momentary figment of her imagination, not a nasty, cheap trick played on her by the trees, by the dark... by that lingering ache in her heart.

She will be extremely furious with me, overwrought with concern. She will raise her voice to an outrageous pitch only audible to the likes of dogs. She will demand, in an angry, incoherent rush of words, why I've not written to her all this time. I will then pretend to be cool, flashing her a faintly amused smile, the art of which I've mastered to unprecedented perfection, and I will politely request that she lower her voice should her near to deafening hysterics catch the unwanted attention of her classmates.

But secretly, truthfully I will be happy. Happy to see her again, to have her worry, to have her fret so anxiously over me. I will be content to argue with her about the smallest things... overjoyed to have her laugh at the most ludicrous things that spill, too early let, from my mouth.

Happy to be with her again.

This is why I live.

There is the sudden, angry clop of footsteps just beyond my cell. A dim, watery light pools in beneath the narrow slit of the door, and I gaze at it blankly, almost coldly, the emotion in my eyes dry, and black as kindling. The door bursts open with a harrowing bang.

It is two of Fowlson's hired associates, their eyes unnaturally wide, and mad with the promise of blood.

They divvy, between the two of them, a bony arm each, and I am lifted from the merciless cool of the floor too easily like a rag doll. They pull me with very little effort to a room I have seen many times plague the shadowy interior of my nightmares.

It is a narrow, airless chamber with tall, sprawling walls starved of windows. A soft glimmer of light like a dancing halo flickers atop three fat candles dripping onto a sharp, high ledge to my right.

Tonight—or today, I can no longer tell—the chamber is empty of beating stones, fork-tailed whips, wooden clubs, and a jeering throng of barrel-chested, tight-fisted men. Instead there is a small tub of water, not unlike the sort laundresses employ to wash clothes... and Fowlson... a cold, exhilarated smile hidden beneath the broad arms of his foul mustache.

His expression is so expectant, so demanding of a good knee-trembling, that, despite the throbbing, and fiery pain of my battered limbs, I nearly fall over myself, guffawing madly like a lunatic.

"What's this then?" I roar out hoarsely, my throat achingly brittle with the lack of water, "The three of you going to give me a good, proper bath?"

Fowlson's affected demeanor falters a bit, but he recovers easily, his wide, beetle-black eyes glittering with all the undisguised malevolence of a cat ready to pounce.

"Can't say you don' need one, now, can you? Eh, brother Kartik?" He surveys my squalid appearance up and down with a happy, tottering malice, taking elaborate notice of the dark, wandering stain along the neck of my over-sized threadbare shirt, my trousers that are woefully in tatters about the knees...

"But no, no. There's still tha' 'ickle ma'er of miss Gemma, and wot she told you 'bout the realms," Fowlson gives the tub a small, almost affectionate kick, the eyebrow that is sliced in two by that prominent gash cocked in a ghastly, wicked expression of a dare, "Feelin' up to sharin' tonigh'?"

My heart is a caged, beastly thing eager to leave the hollow of my chest.

There is the minute, but arresting sting of a deep, and torturous ache if I move so much as an inch to my left or right. My dark skin has become a well-worn gallery of purplish bruises, and red-brown scars.

Standing before Fowlson, I am literally half of myself, my bones sagging in a skin that has become entirely too large, almost foreign, but my purpose begins to fill it.

"No, Fowlson," I am loathe to say, for I know very well that it would gravely disappoint the man if I were to comply, sweet as you please, with his threats without so much as the customary punch. I will be giving him what he wants by resisting, and it angers me so much that I am nearly shaking with the force of it. "So fuck yourself."

Fowlson monstrous grin grows impossibly broader in earnest, those wretched, despicable eyes disgustingly alight, and dancing with a twisted, demented joy. "I was hopin' ye'd say that, mate."

In two passionately brisk strides, Fowlson is a hulking, beast-like figure at my side.

With his fat, meaty fingers sinking hungrily into the flesh of my shoulder, he immediately forces me down on my knees, clutching the back of my ratty shirt hastily as he drags me forward, just inches before the small, steel tub.

It is at that very instant, both terrifying and surreal, that I realize what he seeks to do.

Before I can even struggle against the unyielding, vine-like cords that bind my two wrists together so tightly they are nearly the shade of chalk, Fowlson grips a fistful of my dark, overlong hair, and with a sharp thrust, plunges the whole of my head into the frigid water.

The water wraps itself about my face with all the stubborn reluctance of a sweater fitted far too small. The terrifying din of Fowlson's howl-like laughter is completely shut out by the pounding thud of the water. If I should even breathe a pint of this into my lungs, I would, no doubt, suffocate within minutes, with nothing more than a trail of fat, lazy bubbles plop-plopping onto the surface to indicate the release of my undignified scream. On the other hand, should I attempt to struggle, or land a blow—which would tickle Fowlson at best, given the deprived, pitiable state of my body—I would only be using up the oxygen left to me.

Should I make it through this extraordinary mess alive, I decide, I will most rightly take it upon myself to pay Fowlson a tidy, little compliment on the creativity, and startling effectiveness of his torture methods.

Supposing he's still alive, in perfect possession of his wits, and can hear, feel, and move by the time I'm done beating him into a bloody pulp, that is.

Don't breathe, Kartik. That's it.

Entirely too soon however, the once small, once appeasable hunger in my thinning veins becomes stronger, increasingly treacherous; a monster. It paints my lips a pale blue with its naked desire, my face deepening to the color of violets in bloom at the staggering intensity of its need...

My knees flinch suddenly in unison, my hands wringing now with an astonishing fierceness, a senseless desperation, against the aching fold of my spine. I cannot help it. It is my body, at its most basic, its desires and needs keenly primitive, finally taking over, and my mind is helpless to its bid for war, and ultimately... it relinquishes all control.

And then it happens. Red bleeds, and streams from the corners of my blurring vision as if someone has accidentally knocked an ink bottle over my eyes. I shake my head tearfully against the pull of this frightening dream, this all-too familiar nightmare, and Fowlson instantly perceives this as an act of surrender, yanking me none too gently out of the water by my dripping, tangled hair. But it is too late.

I am standing, cold, and unafraid, before a barren, desolate field watered thick with the blood of the fallen. The darkness, that hidden, deceptive pitch of night peeks at me from behind the pale, and sunken lids of terrible, mangled creatures who clamor about me restlessly, feeding the cool, wintry air their broken, strangled cries of fear, of hard, bloodthirsty fury.

There is an enormous, pulsing tree, its great, withered roots, black as coal, splitting the ground effortlessly with its god-like intent.

I am not myself. Against the smooth, white-silver plane of a partially blood-crusted blade, I glimpse the hideousness of my true reflection, the cruel flash of my milky white eyes, the sudden hollow of my dark cheeks, the new gauntness of my chin that could draw blood, pierce skin. The blade shifts suddenly, rising, then swinging in a magnificent, mesmerizing arc. My reflection is lost, and my eyes wander immediately to the sword's wielder.

Amar.

The shock I feel is a dreadful, consuming weight that bears me, on all fours, to the ground. Amar shares my wicked, discolored eyes, his broad back cloaked loosely in the festering hide of long slain animals.

"You will be the death of her, brother," He murmurs to me in a low, dangerous voice hideously close to a rumble, and my throat burns painfully with the threat of tears. I train my moist eyes on him, pleading.

I lift a hand to where he sits, glowering at me dispassionately from his impressive beast of a horse, and I am desperate to salvage some part of him, some recognizable piece of the brother I lost as if only yesterday, the brother who was the only family I've ever known, the one who gave me my identity. His love that made me so sure of everything, so unquestioning... not frightened.

But there is a new shock.

My fingers are dripping with blood. I immediately search myself for the impression of wounds, and with my heart suddenly caught in my throat, I croak, "Gemma?"

Gemma is as pale as marble, the beautiful, arresting green of her eyes half-hidden beneath eyelids that flutter violently like butterfly wings in order to stay up. Blood is blooming like a menacing flower through the white fabric of her dress. She lays crumpled, a broken doll on my lap.

"Gemma..." I gasp, horror draining the very little color from my face, "Gemma! good God!" I grip her sides hysterically, and almost drop her as she feels so awfully cold to the touch.

"Gemma, please... Gemma wake up... Gemma, I..." Love you. I love you. Tears leak thick, fast, and unstoppable down the warm, peaty slopes of my cheeks, mottling her dozens of tan freckles, her one, two sunspots from Bombay. With grueling, effort, she inches herself closer to me, gripping both my arms unbearably hard, wrapping them about her waist hastily, without too much care. Through my thin, insipid veil of tears, she is smiling contently, and with one last, savory breath of air, she shuts her eyes as if all is well.

She wished to die in my arms.

The grief, when it reaches me, crashes down upon me like a roaring, thundering wave. I shiver uncontrollably in the wake of it, and I do the only thing I can think of.

_I scream._


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so much for the lovely, encouraging reviews for the last chapter! You people are extremely gracious! 

My sincerest apologies for being a bit behind in posting. I can only work on this fic during the weekends, so my time is very limited.

Anyways, again, I stress that if you have any criticism to give on the writing, the characterization, plot points, give it by all means, and happily too. Mind, I don't want flames telling me how much I suck, erm. If something wasn't particularly done well, please give me a few pointers on how I can improve.

As always, anything that is remotely recognizable from the books, I do not own. They are property of Miss Libba Bray.

* * *

_Words, weightless. Murmured softly in the hush of dark. There is the growing sound of footsteps: swift, wary, light. The shrill, indignant cry of a door as a pale, thin hand presses insistently against it, pushes it open with an impatient thrust. A violation, a savage burst of light. A figure, long, uncertain, shapeless; it drifts towards me with questions, ill demands._

_It drifts towards me with purpose._

_"Give her back to me,"_

"Kartik, heavens, it is only I-"

_"Give her back to me this instant,"_

"Kartik—! Stop this madness at once!"

I come to from fitful sleep with a nervous, violent start.

My breathing is mercilessly quick, the near insufferable cool of mid-April unsheathing itself within me to reveal a dagger that stabs with an eager persistence at the labored heaving of my lungs.

A tight, careful whisper cradles my name in the dark, "Kartik..."

The faint Scottish brogue only takes me but a second to place, and the pit of my stomach is taut with the grip of foreboding.

"Miss McCleethy?" I look about the poorly lit room in apprehension, trying to place her slender, imposing figure there, amidst the effortless pandemonium that is my several unlaundered clothes.

"Down... here..." Miss McCleethy informs me with what sounds like enormous difficulty, and I nervously lower my gaze as directed. What I discover there nearly drives me into the only too welcoming arms of dementia.

"Miss McCleethy!" I shout, alarmed, "Gracious, I am so very-"

"Insane?" She proposes incredulously in what comes out as a weak and strangled rasp, her dark, narrowed eyes unusually bright with the strong glimmer of hot, reproachful tears. "Let me go..."

I immediately remove my fingers from where they are wrapped tightly around her neck. She rolls off from beneath me with an astonished cry, rubbing hard at the dark, ghastly impressions I've left on her skin.

Quickly, I flee the suffocating dim of the sitting room, and bound like mad for the comforts of the kitchen. I burst open the cupboard doors, and from the cold, fetid murk, I lift a sorry, stout nub of a glass gone horribly cloudy from years of neglect. I attempt to clean it as best I can with my shirtfront, before filling it to the brim with icy, bubbling water.

I thrust this glass into Miss McCleethy's trembling hand the instant I've restored myself to her side, and she is quick to swallow the water in hearty, greedy gulps. She does not utter a word of thanks once she's emptied the glass, and I cannot say I expected her to.

"I don't suppose a customary good evening, or a proper hello ever occurred to you, Kartik?" Miss McCleethy fixes me with a sharp, penetrating glare intended to punish, and my cheeks flush hotly with renewed embarrassment.

"I am sorry," I offer quickly, mortification squeezing my voice into nothing more substantial than a whisper, "I was..."

"Having a nightmare?" Miss McCleethy suggests in a tone dull with unconcern, and I suddenly stand from where I sit, painfully close to her on the tiny, tiny bed.

"Why have you come?" I ask with a boldness that does not shock her in the least. She leans in, her elbows perched precariously on her knees as she surveys the shifting tones of my emotions like the sweeping turns in a kaleidoscope.

"Are you aware that Miss Doyle has returned to Spence?" She picks at a nonexistent fray on the hem of her skirt with affected care, and I stiffen.

"Oh?"

Miss McCleethy's lips curl into something faintly reminiscent of a sneer.

"You shall have to forgive my forwardness, Kartik, but at present, I'm in no humor to entertain your games. Have you forgotten our little agreement?" Her eyes flash like fire.

"It is not so little..." My words are so faint I nearly wonder aloud if I had actually spoken them.

"Yes, but it is an agreement nonetheless," Miss McCleethy asserts, abandoning all pretense for civility like a mask she's lifted, and tossed happily from her face.

And I see it now. That desperate, long-suffering cling to a dream whose beauty and reward is simply too great, too vast, too delicious to relinquish, to part to doubt, to fear, to the great, fiery will of a stubborn sixteen-year-old girl. It gleams within the murky blue-grey depths of her fine, piercing eyes, restless with the hunger for fruition...

"And..." I say, after a moment's pause spent entirely riddled with unease, "If I chose not to continue with this agreement?"

Miss McCleethy looks as if I've punched her in the face.

"Kartik, need I remind you the value of your word?" She practically shouts, outrage lending strength to her voice.

"Bargains can be broken," I state simply, and Miss McCleethy is on her feet at once, crossing the little space between us in great, stupendous strides.

"Were it not for my intervention, Kartik, you would surely be dead," She intones acidly with a smile as wide and false as those plastered on eager, fortune-hunting suitors,

"And on that score, I must inform you thanks a bloody lot," _For I would be happier dead_, I only just stop myself from adding.

Miss McCleethy recoils from the insolence of my response as though I've just spit on her.

"Are you so disgustingly ungrateful that you are unwilling to repay my kindness with-"

"Kindness was it?" I let out a laugh made unnervingly shrill by bitterness. "I wonder, was that all that compelled you to save my life, Miss McCleethy? Or did you come to realize just as your bloody sweetheart was shoving my face into the water that I could tell you all sorts of things about the realms, about Miss Doyle that the dear girl wouldn't dream a whit of imparting to the likes of you?"

"Everything comes with a price." There is not the slightest, discernible trace of remorse or shame in her smooth, hollow voice. It is only one of the many hideous truths that has twined itself fixedly to the reaches of her soul. She is saying something inarguable to her, obvious.

"I didn't ask you to save me," I say quietly, and in some cleverly concealed, inaccessible, unknowable part of myself like a hidden chamber or a locked room, I am finding more and more each day wishing terribly that she hadn't.

There is a queer grip to Miss McCleethy's exploratory stare... as though I were a particularly difficult mountain she is endeavoring to climb, and she soon discovers herself slipping, and sliding at every possible turn. She cannot find a solid foothold...

"And what of your brother?" Miss McCleethy has recovered. "Will you not save him?"

I turn dark, murderous eyes on her.

"That _thing_," I ground out so savagely I am close to spitting, "Is not my brother,"

"Nothing is ever lost entirely," The hardness that was so purposefully wielded by her voice like a mighty, fearsome blade is gone. It is impossibly soft now... _cooing_, ever so gentle as a mother's.

"I cannot save something that is no longer there..." I mumble with a certainty that would surely crumble to dust at the faintest touch, and Miss McCleethy is alarmingly quick to sense it.

"But what if it is? What if there is still some small, small part of him that you can retrieve... _set free?_ And you chose instead not to act. Do not forget that I am of the Order. We have helped souls cross over to the other side for many a century. With the magic, I am certain there is some way of saving him, of giving him peace."

Give him peace.

I cannot seem to hold all the weight of myself, for I fall fast to the floor, trembling horridly as if from an insufferable chill. Tears spring, inevitable, to my eyes, searing my lids with the overwhelming intensity of their warmth, these minute heralds of disquiet, sadness, fear. _Of doubt_.

For although I am almost certain that Miss McCleethy is lying through her very teeth, how could I possibly deny Amar a feasible chance at peace, at a restful soul's end no matter how small, how unlikely?

And then there is Gemma.

Should I agree to this wretched bargain, I would have to play spy for McCleethy. But no. That is not what worries me the most.

_You will be death of her brother._

It is like being pulled apart by two entirely dissimilar... yet equally commanding forces. I await the will of the sole, clear victor, but the battle rages... it is relentless.

To save a beloved brother who is possibly lost, eternally captive, forever prisoner to the dark, seductive pull of corruption? Or to bring about the terrible death of a girl whose smile lives within my very veins? Who wears her heart fearlessly on her sleeve, to be treasured, battered, broken, abused. Whose courage and will is such that it rouses me furiously as if from an overlong sleep, urging me to seek nerve, seek spirit, to seek a valor of my own...

And then the answer, the choice I always knew I would make in the end unveils itself before me like a player appearing suddenly from beneath the heavy folds of a velvet curtain. His painted lips part, moving with careful deliberation, and he mouths to me intently:_ You do not have to choose at all._

"I shall leave for Spence tonight," I declare tonelessly from my miserable spot on the floor, and Miss McCleethy appraises me warmly, her hand suddenly a cold, foreign thing on my shoulder.

"Miss Doyle will not know of our agreement if that is your worry," Miss McCleethy soothes, "We shall take the greatest discretion."

A new battle has started within me.

Between self-hatred and disgust.


	3. Chapter 3

Seriously, you guys are just. Wow! Thank you for being exceptionally kind with the reviews. Again, any criticism is equally appreciated. If you guys cannot stand something, or you need to point out a plot, characterization error, please, please do. Provide me with any advise. I gather this will be a long fic (judging from where we are in the story with Kartik,) so I mean to make it a pleasurable ride as possible. 

Anything that is even remotely familiar, I do not own. They are the sole property of Libba Bray.

* * *

Day, night's notoriously hopeless suitor, has turned out cheerfully before England in his best turquoise suit.

Fine, gossamer whispers of grey-gristled cloud streak and weave joyfully across his vast, timeless face like so many jaunty old men's whiskers, beneath which, a smile of untold warmth and brilliance beckons each and every wistful passer-by to return it with a gay, cheery doff of a hat, or a small, affectionate nod.

I daresay I shan't be one of them.

"What the bloody hell are you shining for?" I glower unkindly at the Sun, and it is affronted enough to glare back.

Chagrined, I cast my gaze elsewhere, letting my stung eyes fall to the trodden ground, where they begin to trace the many dark footsteps there... like fallen soldiers, wholly unidentifiable, and over and top of one another in their interminable silence.

_We shall take the greatest discretion._

Right. And I shall take rat poison straight from the vial, you detestable woman. For surely, that is the only feasible way I could be expected to keep yet another a foul, insidious secret from Gemma Doyle without deriving the faintest hint of suspicion. Of hurt...

A secret, that with every passing hour, it seems, is starting to feel more like a mill around my neck, than a _harmless_ means to a worthwhile end.

End. Gemma's End. 

_Her skin is the sheer, unearthly white of spectres, her eyes open and hollow like the yawning mouth of jars. Her mouth is split wide into a sad, ferocious smile, her pale fingers twined fiercely with mine like ribbon as if they shall never release their punishing grip. Her death. You will be her death. _

The joyous, infectious peal of girls deeply enthralled shakes me very much like an insistent hand from the unsettling gloom of my thoughts. I am devoutly thankful for it.

The beautiful, oddly hypnotic sound swells over the thick, gnarled boughs in eager degrees, soon shaking awake its many furry, winged inhabitants, who, I note with a small, rueful smile, are not so easily amused or delighted to cries by wickedly spun tales of the latest scandal, or the newest boasting of priceless, hideously expensive fripperies bought abroad.

"Spence at last." I mean to evoke the sweet, elated relief of having finally returned to a marvelous, enchanting place held infinitely dear to one's heart, but I fail rather spectacularly.

Instead, I approach the Spence Academy for Young Ladies with an exceedingly sombre and mournful expression quite stolen from a man who is mere seconds away the murderous yank of the gallows.

The school's tall, gothic spires pierce the achingly pristine blue of the sky with all the terrific majesty, and silencing command of a grand old dame.

Syrupy giggles, and tremulous wails float like distinct, dizzying scents from every conceivable nook and crevice, and I find myself leaning out farther and farther from the crook of my collar… my ears like the hands of mudlarks, careful, thorough, spelled with a rigorous attention, searching with fever for that one, particular-

"Look out!"

My neck stiffens immediately to a likeness of a pole. I whirl about in a rush of panic, beholding, quite possibly, the most bizarre spectacle I've ever seen.

Gemma Doyle.

On a rogue bicycle.

Clad in bloomers the size of wind sails.

Quite right, then. It is the most bizarre spectacle I've ever seen.

I've only a split-second to jump out of the way and into the clear of safety before Gemma hurtles like a fast, angry comet a short distance away, the spindly bicycle throwing her off its seat like a wounded, reproachful horse.

Gemma is a groaning, miserable tangle of grazed, too-long limbs, and bruised pride the moment I reach her, and I offer her the small, pitiful consolation of my outstretched hand, already hating myself wretchedly for what I must do.

"Let me help you—are you hurt?"

Gemma's cool fingers find mine, and she pulls them into a grip that is astonishingly fierce.

"You might have been more careful, Sir," Her voice is cold with the effort to veil her embarrassment, and my lips stretch into a smile made small and frail with the promise of misery.

"You might have been looking out, Miss Doyle."

As though bitten by a wayward spark, Gemma starts with a surprising violence, raising her face to mine in a look of disbelieving shock. The sun catches her face full like cupping hands, setting her coppery red hair ablaze. The light swims into the shifting, mercurial pool of her glass green eyes, and I am silenced, not for the first time, by the sheer unnaturalness, the undecided mystery of her beauty.

When I have come back to myself, I find that Gemma has been closing, and opening her lips repeatedly as though choking on something large and unseen. She struggles to settle her mouth into a tight, thinning line of what is meant to be outright disapproval—though her unabated earnestness quite gives her pleasure in seeing me away—and in a tone breathless and stifled as though it too is restricted in a callous corset, she says, evenly, "How good it is to see you again."

I flit my eyes momentarily to the slightly twisted back wheel of her bicycle, and nod.

"You've taken up bicycling, I see,"

"Yes," She spits, her eyes narrowing impossibly to the fineness of thread, "Much has happened these months." _If you only knew…_

"You're angry," It is a lame observation.

"I am not," She lies, endeavoring a light, merry laugh that comes out as acrid, and bitter as appleseed.

"I do not blame you for it," I say, fighting hard to keep the accursed, telltale quiver from my voice, and I am suddenly glad for the bicycle that sits, injured, between us.

"I wondered if the Rakshanna had…" Gemma trails off, uncertain, her coldness at my long disappearance quickly melting away into concern. "If you were…"

"Dead?" I finish, happy to relieve her of her discomfort, "… It would seem not."

Gemma seems especially keen to keep me this way, for she inquires in utmost haste, "Are you hurt? Have you eaten?"

"Do not worry on my account," I can scarcely bite back the insistent _please_ that seeks immediate release from my throat.

"And the realms?" I ask urgently after a moment's consideration, "What news of them? Have you returned the magic and formed the alliance? …Are the realms secure?" _Secure from her._

"I have it well in hand," Gemma's voice is the extraordinary hardness of flint, and I suppose I've injured her with talk of business. But there is one other pressing matter that I must pose a dire question to...

"And…" I begin again, the desperation I feel inspiring tremors to wander, up and down, the length of my words, "Have you seen my brother in your realms? …Have you seen Amar?"

"No, I haven't," She is speaking so softly, and with such a tender solemnness, I nearly suspect her of lying. "So you were not able to come sooner?" She adds, with the discernible, hopeful anticipation of some fanciful, adventurous tale… one where I might regale her of my numerous, miraculous scrapes from the clutches of the evil and dastardly Rakshanna, my thrilling triumphs, how I perhaps outsmarted them, what manner of trickery did I employ to fool them into thinking me a dead man.

Then I would say, to her decided confusion, that I might as well be dead. For it is only the base bond of blackmail and ulterior motives that keeps me shackled to this thin, feeble existence. An existence where she is neither friend, or something more, but merely pawn, a bargaining tool, a stepping stone.

A means to an end.

"I chose not to come," The disgust is so thick in my throat, I feel as though I may choke upon it.

Gemma is painfully puzzled.

"I—I don't understand," she stammers, and I am callous, eager to afford her the sharpest clarity.

"I think it would be best if we parted ways," I state, denying my tone of any heart or feeling, aware only of Gemma's paramount need to leave... to go.

"You have your path, and I have mine. It would seem that our fates are no longer intertwined."

Gemma is a small swallow away from the spill of tears, and I must force myself to look elsewhere lest a sudden weakness overtake me, a momentary crack in my resolve that will grant me permission to pull her into this cruel game where she can only lose.

"B-but you said you wished to be a part of the alliance. To join hands with me—" Gemma's voice breaks beseechingly at _me_, and my hands curl into bolted fists within my trouser pockets. "With us—"

"I've had a change of heart," I cut through her hope with a single, unfeeling stare, and to my bitter relief, someone from beyond the swell of the hill calls after her,

"Gem-ma! It's Elizabeth's turn!"

It is Felicity Worthington. I hasten to keep her from discovering us.

"They're waiting for you. Here, I shall help you with that," I make to grab the bicycle handles, but Gemma wrenches the bicycle from my reach with such an unnecessarily brutal force the ill-treated thing rattles.

"Thank you, but I don't require your help," Gemma draws breath to inflict a nasty wound of her own. "It isn't your fate."

Her voice drips with a scalding sarcasm, and I draw back silently in willing acceptance of her blow, left to gaze at her swiftly departing figure as I wrestle inwardly with the need to call her back, apologize, grip her hands inside my own, run the pad of my thumb gently over her knuckles, a wordless assurance that I am on her side.

But _this,_ I realize with the throb of a most familiar ache, is my testament to that loyalty, my allegiance to her.

I will make it my mission, my bloody life's work to have her abhor me, through and through.

And judging from the choices I've made just solely within the last week, I daresay I am already well on my way to that path.


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you so much again for all the reviews I received from the previous chapter!! **michael buble's lover** brought up many good points in her astute criticism of chapter three, and I'll try my best not to rely so much on TSFT for plot ideas.

I know the story's really slow at the moment, I'll pick it up soon with the next chapter. Oh, and a little Romani lesson: Vardo(s) is/are the colorful caravans the Gypsies travel in/treat as homes. Blood, like dogs and gaje (outsiders,) are considered particularly impure/bad luck.

Anything familiar I do not own. They are property of Miss Libba Bray.

If there was any confusion, Ithal is talking about Felicity at the end. Kartik and Ithal joke about Freya at the beginning. :)

* * *

The gypsy camp is surprisingly still, the dreadful air of something terribly amiss inexplicably evident as I make my presence known with two sharp taps on a neighbouring bark of a tree.

Someone sitting quietly on the steps of a nearby caravan glances up instantly at the sudden sound.

"Baba Elena?" He demands of the sighing trees, anguish stealing nearly all the breath from his voice, and seeing my face, his mouth falls into grim smile. "I see you've returned to us at last."

He evades the last three steps on the stairs with a jaunty leap, and I meet his cheerfully extended hand with my own, pumping it.

"Yes, I am aware of your expressed concerns regarding the union, but I will not be denied my heart's true love," I begin, summoning a most affected tremble to my voice, and Ithal lets out a little, affectionate bark of laughter at our silly joke.

"Ah, yes. She's been most inconsolable since you've left… threatened to nip my nose when I spoke ill of your character," He adds for good measure, and I follow him nimbly through the many colourful rows of vardos at rest, the novelty of my surprising return earning me the small, occasional smile from the younger set of the gypsy women, who silently braid modest sprays of pale, minute flowers and sweet-smelling herbs into the elaborate, serpentine twines of their long, dark hair.

Ithal and I soon reach a familiar, desolate clearing situated a few feet away from the leisured bustle of the camp, and with the first, genuine smile I've allowed myself to show in months, I amble eagerly towards a sleepy, dappled mare who, with an overjoyed whiny, recognizes the feel of my fingers almost instantly against the majestic span of its back.

"Be wary now. I'm only a few feet away, and I'll not have you compromising Freya's virtue," Ithal lifts a cautionary finger, and I laugh, well and truly, the sound seeming so much more foreign, and strange to me than a few spoken words in Romani. Ithal throws me a fat apple he's cleverly hidden in his pocket, and I offer the bright, ruby fruit to Freya's eager, nuzzling mouth.

"I gather you found your stay with the English well." There is a noteworthy edge to Ithal's words, and I eye him meaningfully.

"I found my stay with the horses well," I murmur, loud enough over Freya's blissful chomp-chomping, and Ithal scoffs.

"You slept in the stable house?" He shakes his head, and a lithe curtain of his pale gold hair falls to hide the slighted indignation brimming hotly in his white-blue eyes, "We might as well be horses, no _dogs_, the way they treat us."

I try to beckon, somewhere from within myself, a similar sense of stung resentment at having been treated thus by a hideously indulgent society crippled with flawed values and a cruel, perverted sense of worth. But I find, to my slight alarm, that I am nearly indifferent, that I am numb. Compliant.

Compliant to the unjust, and often disheartening conventions and ways of a world I cannot affect or hope to change.

"I wasn't lying, just so you know."

I lift my gaze abruptly from Freya's savage mauling of the apple, and I pull a puzzled expression. "Lying?"

Ithal is suddenly grinning widely, his demeanour smug with the air of knowing something I do not.

"'She's been most inconsolable'?" When I am hopelessly lost as to his meaning, Ithal leans in, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "She's been asking for you."

It takes me all of a dull moment to register that Ithal must be speaking of Gemma, and I very nearly choke Freya with the remaining bit of apple so ill at ease am I with this new information. Freya shoots me a warning look.

"Asking?" I wheeze out, strangely afright, picturing in my mind's eye a foolish, unthinking Gemma, creeping breathlessly from the safety of Spence, and unwisely into the illusory calm of night… with nothing more in the way of dress than a woefully misbuttoned robe, and a chemise so loose, so absurdly thin you can nearly make out the sinuous shapes of her-

"The first day our camp got settled," Ithal explains slowly, one of his fair eyebrows raised in a look of confusion, no doubt in a fitting response to the sudden flush that has overcome my cheeks, which, considering their dark colouring, must be very bright indeed...

"She sought after one of us, and invented some tale about your needing employment," Ithal leans back to stroke Freya's dusty mane. The gesture is loving, gentle, but the smile on his face is carnal. "But I knew it was her who was in need of _something_."

I should clout Ithal's bloody nose for such a deplorable assertion.

But as I am, too, rather guilty of having my thoughts wander, unabashed, in places where they've certainly no right or business to be, I force, from the squirming depths of my throat, a laugh of such an obnoxious and pompous nature, that for a horrifying instant, I am reminded of the several, philandering gentlemen whom I've had the great displeasure—as dutiful, and ever unquestioning coachman—of taking home after an evening's length of questionable activity, from the sprawling estates of their mistresses.

Ithal is content to join me in my feigned merriment for a good minute or two, before I am required to stop the bloody madness with an unpleasant question I've longed to ask him since first witnessing his earlier distress,

"And what of Baba Elena? Is she not well?"

Ithal lowers his gaze, the swell of his throat rising and falling.

"It is like asking if it rains everyday in this damned country. But to answer your question, she has gotten worse. Crying for Carolina, plagued with horrible health-"

A strangled cry swallows the rest of Ithal's reply, and I am suddenly aware of fingers, curled and insistent along the length of my forearm. I twist my head around, and it is one of the gypsy women, Sofia, her brown eyes wild and lined with worry.

"The outsiders, the English men, Baba-" she pants hysterically, nearly incoherent from her running, and Ithal, face twisted with fury, is on his heels at once. Sofia urges me to follow him with an agitated shake of her head, and I require no further permission, abandoning my reunion with Freya with a quick, apologetic smile, and a loving pat on the creature's soft, obliging muzzle.

The camp has grown impossibly stiller, hushed with the obvious absence of men. Ahead, there are shouts, loud and wounding in their dissent, and I swallow, anticipating the worst.

The branches rain down upon me like a thousand arms, tugging weakly at my rumpled hair, clinging to the stubborn folds of my weathered clothes, teasing my dark skin into the ready pinkness of dawn, pushing me back as if in a fruitless attempt to keep me from discovering something gruesome, shocking beyond words.

The trees begin to thin, and I glimpse Mother Elena's stooped figure, the shadowy outline of her small, frightened form cut against the bright, golden bath of sun.

Another face swims into view, worry plainly written in its in startlingly green eyes.

Gemma.

What business could she possibly have here?

"Here now what's all the trouble?"

A formidable figure of a man heads towards the direction of the fray in a brisk, indignant clip, the mouth beneath the enormous, dark moustache set tightly into a thin line of disapproval.

"Bloody Gypsies, mate."

The hatred in this new voice startles me into outrage, and I narrow my eyes at the speaker in mutual contempt.

"I am not your mate, Sir," The former man's gaze is steely, "And you'll have a care around these ladies or I'll have you at the Yard." Yard._The Scotland Yard_ in London.

The Inspector is glowering at something the other man is holding, and I discover, my ragged breathing quite nearly ceasing altogether, that the worker is clutching a very large hammer, his hunger to wield it as sure and fierce as the loathing in his eyes. I flank Ithal in his shielding of Mother Elena, and the workers' nasty smiles broaden.

"Best go back, m'um," The Inspector says gently to Mother Elena who refuses to be consoled with his kindness. Her thin, frail lips hang open like trap doors, helplessly mute in their secret horror.

I can feel the fretful roam of Gemma's eyes upon me, and struggle insanely with myself not to return it.

"Let us go, Baba," Ithal whispers, lifting her bony, sun-spotted elbow gingerly to his chest. The other Gypsy men offer Mother Elena soothing smiles, stooping low, and raising their arms high to clear a demure path for her in the trees. Then it happens. A subtle change in the air. There are poorly smothered chuckles, and Ithal stiffens.

I note the gleam of something faint against the sharp slope of his right cheek, and his fury is palpable, infectious. The numbness within me lifts like a thick, blinding fog, and there are only the workers' taunts, aching with the want for release from lips shut tight with the strained pretence of civility. The spiteful eyes that cannot even see; I am too small for them, beneath their notice, insignificant.

I turn before I am stopped to flash them a silent threat, but my eyes find Gemma's, and I cannot rein the anger that eagerly stirs the blood in my veins. Gemma. Gemma and her sodding petticoats, her balls, her title, her family, her bloody _Simon Middleton_.

_I do not even think of you as Indian_.

I scissor my glance towards the workers, noting the strokes of days-old grime along the bridges of their proud noses, the violent ruddiness in their sun-beaten cheeks, their teeth stained with the promise of eventual rot. A lady of Gemma's standing would not even think to associate herself with someone so damnably low. We are all dirt under someone's heels, and everyday we try our very best not to get crushed with the weight of that truth. We fight back by belittling those we can, with the shameless and outright maligning of others, so that in their deep bouts of torment, we might convince ourselves that we are greater. We are of some worth.

"Amria…" Mother Elena croaks to no one, and no one troubles themselves to listen.

Amria.

_Curse_.

* * *

Ithal is nowhere to be found.

This troubling news reaches me—where I was to be found at the late hour, furiously restless within the boathouse, paring a bit of deadwood into the shape of Gemma's amulet with an old letter opener—by way of a tearful, diminutive girl I recognize instantly to be Ithal's little sister, Ravena.

"He say he would only be gone for little while," she explains to me miserably, her eyes, the faded cobalt of her brother's, extremely glossy with tears, and I kneel before her, stroking her wild, blonde hair into the sweet tameness of silk.

"When did your brother leave?" I ask, dread a tightening ache in my gut, and Ravena tiny lips tremble, her voice cut in terrific, anguished sobs. "Ho-o-ours a-goo-o! And… I… don't… know where he go-o!"

I look past the ceaseless shudder of her timorous shoulders, my eyes climbing the dirt path from the boathouse and past the dim, libertine maze of trees until they can go no further, denied and obstructed by a thick, murmuring curtain of dark.

"Ravena, if I am not at the camp within an hour, please alert the others," I instruct gently, mopping up her slick tears with light, soothing sweeps from my thumb, and she nods vehemently, running the short distance from here to the merry descant of the Gypsy camp. I turn quickly from the open mouth of the doorway, my heart pumping furiously with a possibility so gruesome, so appalling I can scarcely will myself to entertain it: What if Ithal is grievously harmed? Perhaps he sought a confrontation with the workers, or them, with him?

I scour what little I have for anything that would prove to be most beneficial to me in a brawl. My one, treasured copy of the Odyssey sits, seeming to peer hopefully up at me from my makeshift desk of abandoned crates. Well.. unless I want to torment them with language so elevated in sophistication they nearly die of bemusement, I think I shall settle for some other instrument that would hurt dearly to have beaten against one's mouth, face, or teeth.

The little light glowing from the heart of the lantern dances, as if in suggestion, against the skin of something long, and masked by the dark.

Gemma's cricket bat.

I reach for the slender handle, the tender, swollen ridges of it seeming to kiss the hot face of my palm in its gratefulness to be employed. I all but walk out of the boathouse, my pace in the mind of an avid runner as I begin to make my way up the dirt path by the thin, watery light of the moon. The trees seem to grow larger, more fearsome in the dark. Beneath the toes of my shoes, the grass is brittle and dry as sun-burnt hay.

There is the sudden lurch of water to my right, and I flinch as though struck.

I turn swiftly, and to my immense surprise and relief, I am greeted by the site of an unharmed Ithal, his shapeless trousers drawn up to his unnaturally pale knees as he wades his way roughly past the brimming edge of the lake. He tries to right himself with a steady hand on the ground but his palm proves far too slippery and it slips against a small spattering of iridescent stones, their little, pointed teeth forging fresh, tiny rivulets of blood across the front of his hand. He cries out at the unexpected sting of it.

"Ithal, wait!" I shout. I hurry to reach his side but he raises his injured hand at me, his eyes observably red with the throb of spirits as he finds my gaze and holds it, pleading with me fiercely to stay where I am.

"I am impure," He lets out in a voice astonishingly close to tears, and I struggle to find words that will be of some comfort to him. I have never seen him so distraught.

There is the curious, faintly musical peal of glass in movement. An empty bottle rolls within view.

"It is alright," I say firmly after a moment's pause, my footfalls as quiet and soft as snow. "We will clean the wound, and Baba Elena-"

Ithal chuckles bitterly at the apparent foolishness of my suggestion.

"You don't understand, I have been impure for a long time." He stares out bleakly into the perfect still of the water as though the sight of it is inordinately fascinating.

"I have been consorting with outsiders—with _her_." Ithal utters the last so softly that I am sure he meant only to say it to himself. My confusion is bitten through by the terrible gnaw of understanding, and I delicately lower myself beside his crumpled form, knowing I do not have to utter a single word, but need only listen.

"Is there something wrong with me?" He chokes out, his eyes hidden beneath flickering lids that try, desperately, to keep disconsolate tears at bay. "Is there something so vile, so unbearable about me that she cannot keep the promise she made here?"

I shake my head silently, unable to speak or swallow or draw even the tiniest of breaths so undone am I by the extraordinary sight of him sobbing. This is what love reduces one to. We are no longer ourselves. Our shape alters, changes drastically, until we are no longer full, blissfully solid, only something that will forever desire the company of some other complementary piece, the one that will make us well and truly whole.

Complete.

I stare at Ithal's wounded hand, wanting desperately to tend to the only injury I can help. I tear it from where he is cradling it mournfully against his heaving chest, and ignoring his sharp, strangled cry of pain, I dip it into the shallow lip of the lake, letting it bleed out steadily into the numbing cold of the water.

"There is nothing wrong with you," I say at last, my throat burning with something I cannot name. "It is something we cannot help."

For we can only be ourselves, and trust, that somehow, to someone, it will be more than enough.


	5. Chapter 5

An update at last! I've thought about, and written out this chapter about five different ways and the final product is about a mishmash of those very five. Please feel free to spout theories if you have any and, as always, any constructive criticism you can offer would be helpful. I'm so sorry it took me so long to update, but as my classes are starting to cover more difficult topics, I hope you understand that my freetime is very limited.

Thank you for the reviews I've received on the previous chapter, and again, I own nothing you recognize. The beginning's a fun poke at Kartik/Ithal. :D

* * *

The first hour of morn finds me sitting on weary heels, a most undignified, exasperated figure of a man, next to a positively shuddering Ithal, holding a tin bucket to his pale lips as he, with agonizing effort, empties the contents of his night's dejection into it in great, violent lurches.

Needless to say, I've not found his company more _pleasurable_.

"That is the last time you are _ever_ drinking," I pronounce bewilderedly as Ithal rises, shivering and wan-faced, from the bucket's seemingly bottomless mouth for what I am certain must have been the seventh time within the past, gruesome half-hour.

For all his unceasing trembling and groaning incessantly of pain, Ithal is surprisingly quick to snap back, and with all the pout-lipped defiance of a child.

"I don't recall crawling out of your womb," He grumbles, most disagreeable,

"Interesting. Do you recall vomiting what looked like rat droppings on my crotch, of all places, while I kindly attempted to hold back your hair?" I say pleasantly through a clenched smile,

"Do you want me to say sorry, yet _again_?"

"If it will help my trousers smell less like years-old vinegar-"

"Stop yelling!"

Ravena's shrill, impatient cry is quite possibly the closest thing one can envision a sharp blade to the ears would feel like. Ithal and I are both startled into jolting by her sudden reappearance; her fair, minute form presently adopting an unnerving stance: hands tightly gripping the waist, and one, tiny foot tapping loudly with disapproval.

"You fight like old couple!" She informs us disgustedly, raising her chest in a mode reminiscent to a sparrow's. Ithal catches the stifled amusement in my look, and a moment later, we both burst into laughter.

"Come now, missus," I say, offering Ithal the mock courtesy of my extended hand. Ithal snorts at the sight of it.

"If anyone's the wife, it's you," He remarks dryly as I pull him up with a deliberate vigour that sends him nearly toppling to his feet.

"Be gentle will you? I'm ill!" Ithal moans, turning a delicate shade of green.

"Whatever my mistress desires," I tease, an all too triumphant smile set on my lips, and Ithal sends me a hot-eyed glare that could surely penetrate all manner and form of steel. Yanking his hand from where I've gripped it loosely within my palm, he thrusts his nose heavenward, wounded, and offers a very amused Ravena the graciousness of his other.

Mistaking her brother's sorry attempt at dignity as some newfangled child's game, Ravena takes his proffered hand rather elegantly, an air of demureness evident in her little gait. She walks as if she were the queen herself, as if her small, fragile toes could part the seas, and with a high, spirited giggle I suspect she's been holding in, she falls back easily into her sweet, carefree toddle, true only to herself.

She cannot know that in the bosom of Spence, in the heart of London itself, there are those who cannot simply fall back. Those who can only continue walking in that invisible, limitary line they've been taught to follow, without a moment's remotest deviation.

A linear path.

I wonder if one's destiny is similar, a title branded upon one's soul at birth: a lady, a duke, a baron. _A Kartik_. No surprises; only what is expected.

Can everyone truly be satisfied with their place, their role in the grand scheme of things, no matter how small it increasingly makes them feel? Powerless?

Or is it terribly wrong, punishable to hope for something more?

I follow Ithal and Ravena's departing figures with a weariness so heavy, I feel it like a sodden cloak upon my back.

_Accept your fate_. It is my only shield against such troubling, burdensome thoughts, and it is thinning, weakening by the day.

"Good night, Kartik!" Ravena launches herself savagely upon my waist with the full breadth of her arms, a shy, dimpled smile growing on her lips. "Thank you for bringing my brother back."

I gently muss the top of her white-blonde head, smiling as well. "It is nothing."

Ithal approaches us, his face lowered. "Go now, Ravena. I'll be there in a minute."

Ravena pulls away from our tight embrace with dramatized reluctance, her mouth thrust into a mournful pout. She looks up at her brother's doting eyes, the cool crisp blue of Mediterranean seas, and her voice trembles with a familiar fear.

"Promise? Don't leave me like Papa."

Papa. The very word pierces through Ithal's chest like an unseen arrow, and he shrinks back with the overwhelming throb of it. Their father. It is a matter Ithal has discussed very little... I know only that he blames himself for that sudden, untimely death, and the long, unceasing gloom it has cast over his family.

"I promise." Ithal's tender, beseeching gaze is more an apology than anything else.

Ravena is instantly all smiles. "Okay."

She totters away from the encompassing swallow of our shadows, the dying light from the camp fire reaching out to wander reverently along her milk-white skin.

Ithal turns to me, his expression one of unutterable appreciation.

"Kartik, I-"

"It is alright," I say, discomfort making my voice unnecessarily gruff, "I know you would have done no less for me."

Ithal surprises me with a forlorn smile. "We are more alike than you think."

He claps me hard on the shoulder, and before I have my back fully to him, he adds, so softly I almost do not hear, "In the end, they will always choose to break our hearts."

* * *

The mouth of night opens to release a long, piercing yawn of the bitterest cold.

I am alone and devoutly thankful for it, sitting on a worn, dirt path whose destination is distorted, transformed into something frightening to the mind, something no one would dare venture towards as the shadows deepen increasingly and consume it whole.

I raise my face to the starlit sky, the cutting wind running its harsh course against my dark cheeks... myself distressed, though I can scarce imagine why, by Ithal's low, parting words that have since risen to a terrible and fiery crescendo in my ears.

_They will always choose to break our hearts_.

I should not be troubled by this at all... for it is only the truth, _admittedly_, and haven't I always known it from the very start? From the very first moment Gemma transcended the tricky plateau from foe to friend with such startling ease?

Friend to something so much more?

But it would appear not, apparently.

Perhaps I've been telling myself only a more palatable version of the truth. The way women, _people_, I've long observed, often steel themselves against the harsh and unforgiving reality of things they cannot change: _"I am not beautiful, but beauty is hardly everything." "I require no husband. I am perfectly content by myself."_

And yet, when told not beautiful or surrounded suddenly by peers, whose arms are linked happily to those of handsome, adoring husbands, they realize, with tears smarting their eyes and disillusionment breaking their souls, that they haven't armed themselves at all...

They've surreptitiously permitted themselves to hope, allowed themselves to nurse a secret, burning longing to be informed completely wrong: _"You are beautiful." "Will you do me the honour of being my wife?" _

"Gemma and I can never be," I speak as I have never spoken to myself before. Clearer. Firmer. Less willing to simply state the truth but eager to truly grasp it.

To understand.

"Gemma and I can never be." _Never, ever be.  
_  
The keen, biting wind carries my words to some shrouded, hidden place where they will remain forever unheard. And I find I am aching, painfully hollow with the din of one terrible question: Why?

* * *

My trip to the boathouse is made thoroughly miserable by the persistence of misunderstood thoughts.

I am weary yet I dread the vicious pull of sleep, where the curtains of my consciousness shall part to reveal another, more sinister reality, a stage burdened with the weight of a thousand otherworldly players, swords raised, fangs bared; Gemma lost, forever irretrievable in my arms until I wake again.

I do not recall thrusting open the door, or twisting the knob of my one gas-lamp to a low hiss. Everything is an incomprehensible blur of sound, emotion, and movement. My heart feels as though it shall fall straight to the floor of my stomach, so heavy it is with the night's events, and it is only the release of a particularly shrill scream that effectively startles me out of misery.

Taken aback, I spin from my place against my makeshift desk, injuring my backside rather painfully in the process.

A sudden hot flush blooms against the umber of my cheeks at what my eyes take in. I very nearly mistake the chemised woman for Gemma, but the hope is dashed unkindly as the lamp-light lends clarity to my eyes...

The girl is much smaller than Gemma, devoid of the latter's long, spindly limbs, and that memorably pronounced, exotic jaw. Her eyes, a shade darker than Gemma's unusual green, are startlingly enormous, like a kitten's, and her chin is elegantly narrow, framed heavily on either side by long, straggly auburn hair.

"You Sir!" She yelps, pulling a sorry-looking threadbare coat up to her not so humble bosom, much of which is on rather prominent display in a daringly cut chemise, "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

"I should like to ask you the very same question!" I demand in what comes out as little more than a strangled croak, and the young woman regards me as one would regard a hopelessly inept child.

"You mean before you came in? Bungling, loud as you please?" She tosses her wild, red hair over her shoulders in annoyance, and it is a most becoming gesture on her. "I was sleeping."

"With whom?" The words are out of my mouth before I am able to reign them like horses eager to run, and her previously narrowed eyes widen in affronted shock.

"I'm not a harlot, _sir_!" She exclaims, surprisingly wounded, laying an almost tearful emphasis on the word 'sir' as though to point out how sincerely undeserving I am of the title.

"Well," I say, feeling every bit ashamed of myself for the slight, "I do apologize. Although, I must admit I am uncertain of what to think. I do not know many ladies who steal from of the security of their beds to sleep in boathouses in the dead of night,"

"Then you do not know many ladies," She decides, still stung, slipping her pale, delicate-looking arms through the ratty sleeves of her threadbare coat.

"Do you live here?" She prompts all of a sudden, and I stiffen at the terrific wonderment in her voice.

"Made that connection, have you?" I say, turning to lift the moleskin cover of the Odyssey as if I am in the mood for a bit of leisurely reading. In truth, I am overwhelmed. Never in all my life have I been seized with an unfounded desire to stare at a woman for so long. It is an altogether different need. I cannot compare the sensation to anything else except for what I feel when Gemma is nearby. Except then…

"I see, well… I apologize in turn. Indeed, I was unaware." Her voice has grown richer with relief, and I twist my head to restore my gaze upon the smooth, ghostly pallor of her face.

It is a slim face, gaunt, and extraordinarily white as if carved from marble.

"I…" She clears her throat hesitantly, "I've been to the camp, to see Mother Elena. It has been a small tradition of mine to see her every year, to have my fortune read. Unfortunately, at the end of my visit, my horse seemed terribly spooked by these woods and started off without me–"

Her lower lip quivers at the unpleasant recollection, and to my amazement, she buries her head into the cleft of her lap, shuddering with the threat of sobs.

Pity smoothes the creases from my stunned expression like an exacting hand.

"It is alright," I soothe, lowering myself to my knees so that I am able to properly look at her, "I am sure your horse will turn up somewhere nearby in the morning. These woods are known to frighten at night. You... you may stay here, for the moment, if you wish."

She turns those immense green eyes to me in a look of stunned gratefulness, eyes so achingly close to Gemma's I must will myself to turn away lest she find my gaze too searching.

"Thank you so much... Mister...?"

"Kartik," I say sheepishly, when I've realized a second too late that she'd been waiting with unfailing patience for me to reveal my name.

"Cecilia," She returns the courtesy with a shy, watery smile. "Cecilia Radcliffe thanks you."

* * *

My vehement pleas and gentlemanly contentions to sleep outside, by the door, have been thoroughly ignored by this vexing Cecilia Radcliffe.

Though we've nearly two feet to separate us and layers upon layers of boat canvases wound as tightly as the thread of cocoons about our bodies to ward off the growing chill, a torrid ache builds within me, and with such a breathtaking ferocity, I inwardly curse being born a man.

For women, as far as I've surmised, do not surrender so easily to the baser of their inclinations.

Truly, what is the matter with me? It is not as if this Cecilia Radcliffe is the first to catch and truly tempt my eye. I've beheld many handsome women before, and on those occasions, have found myself perfectly capable of upholding some admirable degree of composure. So why now? _What is different?_

Need burns across the planes of me like embers devouring a forest with ease. I am certain I am catching a deadly fever. Sweat seeps into the angry twists of my hair. It soaks my shirt through despite the sighs of cool drifting in from outside. Make it stop. _Make it all stop._

Like a dream, she is atop me at once. Her fingertips, delightfully cool as ice, trace feather-light pathways along the sides of my jaw. The lacy, ribboned straps of her sheer chemise have sunk far below the cliffs of her shoulders, revealing the eager heave of her chest as she plants herself delicately above me, straddling my waist with seemingly weightless legs.

I reach for the crook of her neck. Her smile is curved with the promise of fulfillment. Her heat is intoxicating, and she kisses my throat full, kissing and kissing with gathering strength, until she reaches my lips that are half-open in their contented sigh. Her tongue parts them further, and she pulls me in with the exhilarating force of her kiss.

"Kartik," she pleads restlessly against my jaw, her voice rising then breaking to a weak, shuddering moan, "_Kartik_."

In the part of my mind that is safely apart from the spiralling situation, I long to push her off, to demand fiercely what has happened to the pair of us that has us both acting like lesser beasts. Then. Then there is Gemma. Her face dim, shifting, as though it were a reflection on water.

This is wrong.

As though she's glimpsed something unwelcome in my eyes, Cecilia lowers her sweltering lips to my ear, her voice astonishingly sharp in its whisper,

"_You will be the death of her_."


End file.
